Chapter 832: Freshly Baked Hai Kaka

Hai Dayu stretched long and lazily, then raised both arms and waited for quite a while, but the familiar swaying sensation never came as expected.

He stood there dazed for a long moment, and only when a faint rustling sound began beside him did he suddenly snap back to his senses.

This was not the little broken-down boat of his back in Minnan, but Kunming County in Jinzhou, under Sannam-bu in Goryeo.

Kunming County was in what later generations would call Sacheon in South Korea, roughly a hundred and sixty or seventy kilometers west of Busan, a seaside city of rather fine scenery.

Only for now, Sacheon, still called Kunming County, was quite impoverished.

Although it was a county, its registered households numbered only eleven hundred, about fifty-nine hundred people in all, most of them fishermen and a small part farmers; within the county seat of Kunming there were only about seven or eight hundred people.

Of course, this poverty was relative to later ages; in Hai Dayu's eyes, this territory that belonged to him was quite rich.

Every year, just the catch of fish that fell into his hands amounted to over a thousand jin, and coarse and fine grain together came to ten thousand shi.

After paying the tribute owed to the Great King, he could still keep around eight thousand five or six hundred shi of grain and seven or eight hundred jin of fish.

The tax was by no means light, because the land that could be enfeoffed was never good land.

Reckoning that one person on average produced twelve hundred jin of grain a year, this territory could at most produce sixty-five thousand shi of grain in total.

Taking a tax of ten thousand shi out of sixty-five thousand shi of grain came to about fifteen percent, and if the fish catch was counted in, it reached about eighteen to nineteen percent.

This tax rate was far higher than the seven percent the Tang dynasty levied at home, and also higher than the average of less than five percent that Zhang Zhou currently imposed in the Central Plains.

But at the same time, the Tang's seven percent had been collected in times of peace; after the An Lushan Rebellion, if one counted the reckless abuses of local military men everywhere, it could reach around twenty percent.

Yet by another comparison, the roughly thirty percent tyranny that the great clans of Goryeo had originally collected in Kunming County made this seem quite benevolent.

Under this eighteen percent tax rate, the average Goryeo person could still keep over eight hundred jin of grain a year, two jin and three liang per person per day.

Since not much rice was grown in Goryeo at this time, after hulling and setting aside seed grain, there were still about two jin left.

But that was the average; in practice, the old and weak could just about keep themselves alive on one jin a day, while able-bodied men and sturdy women who had to take part in heavy labor could reach about two and a half jin a day.

This grain, plus a little melons, fruits, and vegetables and the occasional game or seafood, was barely enough to fill the stomach, so long as one did not count clothing, lamp oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, tea, or falling ill.

From this one can also see what kind of life these Goryeo commoners at the bottom had been living under the oppression of the original Goryeo great clans.

Only, this "ultra-low" tax rate that Murong Xinzhang had set was meant to win hearts, break the Goryeo great clans' rule over the localities, and make it easier for him to stabilize the grassroots; what came afterward, that was by no means certain.

In Kunming City, Hai Dayu was quite satisfied; he was all alone, and this grain and fish catch was enough for him to support two very high-ranking household retainers (stewards) and a guard force of fifty or sixty men.

At the same time, being near the sea, he could also sun-dry a little salt to supplement his finances, which counted as extra income; life was not bad at all.

But there was one precondition: Hai Dayu could not have too many wives and children, for once they multiplied, this Lord of Kunming with his twelve or thirteen thousand shi would probably turn into a pauper.

In Murong Xinzhang's current plan, lords and regional chiefs below the Great King could be addressed directly by their noble titles; for example, if Hai Dayu were a count, he could be called the Count of Kunming.

But he was only a viscount, and one could hardly call him something strange like the Viscount of Kunming, so viscounts and barons were collectively called lords, which in the Korean and Japanese tongues was colloquially "Kaka"!

And the reason Hai Dayu could leap from being a boat-dwelling Tanka to the noble Viscount and Lord of Kunming, Hai Kaka, was not only that he fought without regard for his life, but also that his luck was truly very good.

In the naval battle of Hae-ryeong Island, his warship had intercepted a small boat, and aboard it happened to be the second-in-command of the Goryeo navy, General An, who had just fallen into the water and been rescued.

So Hai Dayu boarded the boat with a fishing spear in hand, killed two Goryeo sailors, and together with his comrades captured this big fish.

Later, in the naval battle on the Imjin River, Hai Dayu fought fiercely, was first to board the enemy ship, and with his first hammer blow upon boarding smashed the skull of the Goryeo Imjin River navy's General of the Household.

That kind of luck was truly beyond envy; who could have known what pig-brained fool that unlucky navy general was, how a senior officer could appear in the front row.

Thus, while his third brother Hai Sanxia was only a Patrol Commissioner and his second brother Hai Erxie was nothing at all, already red-eyed with impatience as he waited for the Great King to campaign east against Japan, Hai Dayu was already a feudal lord with an income of over ten thousand shi.

The woman behind him was still young and still had an air of refinement; she was the daughter of the former County Magistrate of Kunming County and could speak a little simple Tang speech.

The County Magistrate of Kunming County had died somewhere unknown in the resistance a few months before, so after Hai Dayu was enfeoffed in Kunming County, he had taken over everything the former magistrate had, including his house, his wealth, and his daughter.

Had the magistrate's principal wife not been a bit old, and had his two concubines not long since run off, Hai Dayu would not have minded sharing one big bed with them all.

The woman was naked, and with some fear yet great care she dressed Hai Dayu.

Hai Dayu, who in the past had been nothing but a boat-dweller forbidden even to set foot on shore, had never received such treatment; looking at the woman's alluring body before him, his heart could not help but stir.

He was just about to press the woman down onto the bed when from outside the door came the banging of someone hammering at it, and a rasping, broken-gong voice shouted loudly:

"Hai Wangba, you donkey-fucked bastard, get out here quick! Today we report to Jinzhou for roll call; if you're late, you donkey-fucked bastard will surely get the plank."

Hai Dayu started in alarm, and suddenly remembered that today was the great day when they, the vassals, were to report to Jinzhou in the north for roll call and reports.

Great King Murong had enfeoffed three viscounts, two barons, and forty-three Patrol Commissioners throughout Sannam-bu, along with more than two hundred households of military colonists.

And to manage these vassals great and small, he had established the office of Surveillance and Disposition Commissioner of Sannam-bu in Jinzhou, the seat of Sannam-bu.

It was used to coordinate the vassals of Sannam-bu in paying tribute, performing military and labor service, mediating disputes among them, and gathering their guard forces together every month for drill and other matters.

Hai Dayu hurriedly dressed and walked out; standing outside was a tall, slender man with a hengdao saber at his waist.

This was Hai Dayu's former superior, Wang Ashiu, the fire-team leader of the Heng Hai Garrison of the navy.

Along with Wang Ashiu came ten sailors of the Heng Hai Garrison and ten mounted and foot soldiers of the Zubu, Khitan, and other peoples from the steppe myriarchies.

They had come to escort Hai Dayu to his post and help him stabilize the locality.

For under Hai Kaka's rule there were nearly six thousand people, and the able-bodied men alone numbered two thousand; had Hai Kaka come to his post alone, he might well have been beaten to death.

So the overlord's headquarters had specially dispatched twenty fully armed soldiers to bolster Hai Dayu's authority, and only when Hai Dayu had the situation in hand would they leave.

Seeing Hai Dayu come out, Wang Ashiu's eyes showed an expression of extreme envy and jealousy.

They were soldiers of the imperial Heng Hai Garrison, come only to support Murong Xinzhang in attacking Goryeo, and therefore could not become vassals under Murong Xinzhang's command.

Our Sage Zhang had considered every aspect; he wanted men like Wang Ashiu to envy men like Hai Dayu.

Only in this way, after Wang Ashiu returned home, would he, full of envy, exaggerate and spread the word of how glorious it was to be a vassal abroad, with rich wine and beautiful women, fine food and fine horses, endless pleasures and so on.

With their propaganda, those poor but fierce young fools back home would have the motivation to want to go abroad.

And even if it were allowed, Wang Ashiu could not do it, because he was quite unlucky; not long after the battle of Hae-ryeong Island began, he had fallen into the sea due to a failed boarding leap, and even his life had only been saved by good luck, so he had no merit to speak of and did not qualify for ennoblement.

Before Hai Dayu could speak, Wang Ashiu waved his hand, and a dozen or so soldiers surrounded Hai Dayu, each one putting on an act as they said congratulations to Lord Kunming on his rise, congratulations to the Lord of Kunming on taking a new wife, and so on.

But it all boiled down to one meaning: you, Hai Dayu, are rich and honored now, and we brothers are envious, jealous, and resentful; if we don't feast off a rich man a few times, the sourness in our hearts cannot be suppressed.

Back in his hometown, Hai Dayu had been such a pauper that even rats wept at the sight of him! How could he bear to lavish a great feast on his brothers? He opened his mouth and at once began to plead poverty.

But Wang Ashiu gave him no chance; he clapped a hand over Hai Dayu's mouth and shouted with a grin to the soldiers around them: "The Lord of Kunming grants a reward — fat mutton and fine wine, as much as you want!"

At the shout, the whole group whooped and hollered their thanks for the reward, then ran off, kicking and beating the Korean commoners in the city to make them haul out of Hai Dayu's storehouse the finest white rice, great cuts of oily, juicy pork, thick salted fish that looked very salty indeed, and bleating little fat lambs.

As for fresh sea fish, octopus, shrimp, crabs, and the like, that went without saying — he had the fishermen under Hai Dayu's rule deliver them directly.

"Wine, where's the wine? Where's the wine you bestowed, Lord Kunming?" A burly Zubu man looked at Hai Dayu, bared his teeth, and bellowed.

Though Hai Dayu's mouth twitched with heartache, there was nothing he could do about these bandits, so he could only wave a hand and tell the Goryeo steward beside him to hurry to the storehouse and bring out some wine.

In his heart he hoped these living bandits would eat and drink their fill and be on their way quickly, so as not to delay his reporting for duty in Jinzhou.

(End of Chapter)

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